


No man left behind

by SaintSaens



Series: Circumnavigo [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Books, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Father-Daughter Relationship, Forgiveness, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Quynh | Noriko, Nazi Germany, Nazis, Nile Freeman is So Done, No beta we die like Quyhn, Post-Betrayal, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Triggers, You Have Been Warned, and cups of tea, and it's hard my friends, basically me needing a father/daughter relationship fic between Booker & Nile, because that's my jam, but it's going to happen, hopefully, lol Booker everyone, lots of books in this work, mentions of - Freeform, no idea where I am going with this, not forgetting, the title is because Nile is trying to herd everyone along on the recovery journey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26753998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintSaens/pseuds/SaintSaens
Summary: It's been three months since they've left Booker behind. The team is trying to go forward, but it's hard.And Nile can't keep her head down. She's done leaving everyone awkwardly managing the silences where there should be a tired snicker, she's done seeing their eyes burn up in anger before being bitten down by bitterness, at the thoughts that strayed towards death and pain. She's done with the untold past they had shared together, and that no one wanted to talk about, because one of their own had failed them.But she was the one picking up the pieces left.So she pulls herself up and she breaks the exile. Because it doesn't matter what they had said back then. What matters is what they need now. And unanswered questions are definitely not that.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Circumnavigo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959520
Comments: 26
Kudos: 182





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this is going. It's an idea that I've had for the past week, I've got a view of where I want to be going with this but no idea how to make it work (if it even does). I just needed it out, and no reason not to share it once it's on a file somewhere in my computer. 
> 
> Main goal : a healthy sort of father/daughter relationship between Booker and Nile  
> Side goals: Joe dealing with being betrayed by his best bro ; Nicky handling his anger in a healthy way and not bottling everything up because he thinks that's what the others need; Andy acknowledging her new place in life, her past and her future but not being sad about it please.  
> Side side goal: trying to see where restorative justice's system could go with immortals (let's be honest, putting someone in the corner never helps. And they'll be dealing with each other for AGES after anyway. *shrug*).  
> General view: HEALTHY HANDLING OF FEELINGS. *laughs in despair*

Booker leaves. 

Copley tries to keep trace of him, following Andy's request, but he quickly happens on dead ends. He checks planes, trains, boats, hotels and rentals, for any of the aliases he knows, they know. But Booker's played him one last time it seems, there's isn't a whisper of him left. And for a 200 years old man, Copley is begrudgingly impressed. When he tells them, he doesn't miss the sadness flickering in Andy's eyes. But it's Joe's disgruntled glare lingering on some pictures taped on his walls that make him try again. 

He tries, because he knows Booker, better than he likes to think. Better than he should, with what he did. He wonders sometimes, if he doesn't know him better than the team. The sadness, the hollowness, the pain. That's something they shared. 

So he tries, sees Joe's barely restrained rage when Andy asks after their Frenchman, bites his lips and shakes his head. Joe's fists tighten. Nicky's eyes never leave his love's. So Copley tries again. 

He's bound to slip at some point, he knows. Because he's met Booker, and he's seen the man's way of dealing with things.   
French through and through. Alcohol is the best remedy for it all. But it's definitely not the best companion to keep things steady and clear.

And yet, nothing comes. And Copley wonders, if Booker hasn't finally managed to leave it all behind. To leave them all behind. 

\- - - 

It's Nile that gets in touch with him again. It's a text, sent with anger and despair, as she wakes from another drowning, another scream, and she's alone in her room and none of the other hear her, and she feels the loneliness because if Booker had been there, that's something she could have shared with him then. It's a text, sent to an odd number found in their warehouse, kept to his name. She doesn't expect any reply, she just needs to let it all out. 

_You're an asshole._ she writes. 

She sends it three more times.

She almost forget about the text, as the day goes by, the others see her tiredness, ask her if she's alright, and fine, yes, she's good, it's said with a smile. She can't help herself, they are already in so much pain, she doesn't think it would be fair for them to hear her rant about Quỳnh again. How she wishes, sometimes, Booker were still there, because he could have helped, maybe. They wouldn't have had to listen to her telling them about their lost friend again. About how Quỳnh is still screaming, in her ears. Again. And again. So she tries to brush it off, even if it gets to her bones now, after 3 months in her new immortal life. Every night a scream and an ocean through which she could see tears. She goes about her day, tiring herself out learning Arabic with Joe, running with Nicky and playing Hnefatafl with Andy. 

And right as she's going to sleep, her burner pings. 

_I know._

Her jaw locks on instinct. She feels fire in her stomach, churning. She's alone in her room, her privacy, right on the brink of encountering the watered cage that is Quỳnh, and it feels like cheating. To the team. She knows she shouldn't be talking to him. But she's sick of it. 

_You're an asshole. You knowing doesn't make it better._ she writes. 

She's done with old white men's bullshit. She's done with their views of the world, of dealing with things. Booker is just another stupid man in this stupid world. But unlike others, this one, she feels like she can tackle. 

_I hate you_. she adds, after a second. Because she thinks about Joe's stopped breath as he is about to comment on a football game, and finds only Andy sleeping at the other end of the couch. The way his eyes dim, and he clicks his jaw, because he will be damned to want Booker back by his side after almost killing their boss. She thinks about his tight fists, during meetings with Copley, with Nicky's hands on top, diffusing the pain and the anger that's simmering down his heart. 

_You're an asshole. And I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you._ Because she had seen Nicky's eyes, glistening under the sky every time a month was taken away from the exile. And she had heard his whispers for redemption, and hope, and help to forgive. Because he was still angry too, and there were times she could see in his eyes the coldness of revenge, and the desire to just kill Booker coming up to the surface as he shot at dead targets. For the pain, and the frustration. The helplessness. Him and Nile, they had both prayed for God somewhere. They were still waiting for some help to forgive, even if they could never forget. 

_You made them cry._ she can't help but type. She thinks about Andy's eyes, the understanding and the longing residing behind her pupils. Because Andy's old enough and lost enough that she gets why someone would do that. Nile hears her, asking in a whisper after Booker to Copley, the silence and the sigh, heavy and disappointed. He has no right, to make her hurt like that. 

  
_How could you do that_ She feels her throat tighten, and her breath leaving her, because that's the core of the matter. How could someone betray their family. She couldn't understand it. She could not do this, not after 3 months with them. How, after 200 years, could Booker have gone that way. How could he leave them behind so easily. How could he leave her alone, to deal with this mess, both in their reality and the mess in their dreams. He was a coward, he had left them alone, he had left her alone. She resented him the most in those moments, for the impossibility to share her distress with someone who could help. With someone who had been there. Who was still there. 

She's crying softly, silently, when her phone pings again. 

_You shouldn't be texting me_

She doesn't even think. It's second nature, to write it out and send it. _You don't have a say in what I SHOULD be doing. After what you did? Yeah. Not even close to giving advice to anyone._ Her thoughts, as raw as her feelings. The way she used to text her mom, her brother. 

  
He takes his time to answer, but she doesn't leave her phone. She is clinging to it, with tension in her every muscle. It feels like she's opened a gate, and a flood is leaving her, mixed feelings and emotions. Like it's all going out, trickling down to give her a bit of relief, a bit of freedom once she's chewed Booker off. A bit of breathing. 

_I'm sorry_

She scoffs. What does it matter, what he feels. That he is sorry. When there's nothing to show for it. Has he understood why it was wrong? Has he understood the pain he had created with his selfish need for death? With his stupid idea of experimenting on them? What does it matter, the apologies, if he can't tell why he shouldn't have done it. 

_That doesn't make things right._

She burns slowly from the inside. The sleep has eluded her now, she is coiled fury, pacing wrath. She feels bitterness behind her teeth and disdain behind her eyes. She feels righteous, and she feels right, spitting down at that man from the other end of a text message. Because damn right. Being sorry doesn't make anything right. Tough to learn, harder to apply. But she'd learned that one early. And now she is keeping to it. 

Being sorry doesn't make things right.

  
The phone pings again. 

_Still. I am sorry kid._

That's it. _I'm not your kid. Don't patronize me_. she snaps the phone shut and stomps down the stairs to the kitchen. 

She remembers halfway through that maybe the others are sleeping, and maybe she should have been more considerate of them, no matter her own inner rage. She stops, takes a breath. And starts down again, more softly. She needs tea. Just a whole litter of tea. 

Andy's not in bed yet, reading with glasses over a book in Nicky's usual place. She looks up as Nile goes through the living room. Nile is not stomping anymore, but she's pretty sure her face is still distorted. "Everything alright?" Andy asks. 

Nile nods." Yeah, just" she waves about "you know. I got thinking. About patriarchy. Colonialism. All this bullshit."

Andy nods slowly "want to talk about it?" 

Nile huffs. That's nice, but she's sure Andy's never really given a second thought to the second part of those issues before. It would feel like talking to her grandma about internet security and that's just, too much for now she thinks. "Thanks, but I'll just drink it away."

Andy's hands tighten around her book. She looks at Nile, with a frown now. "Are you sure it's a good idea?" 

Nile cocks her head. "Well, I'll regret it in one hour when I can't go to sleep because of my bladder, but yes? Why?" 

Andy licks her lips. "You know that alcohol isn't a solution, right Nile?" 

Nile blinks. "Tea, Andy. I'm going to make myself some herbal tea. That's why bladder is going to hate me. I don't drink alcohol" she says, slowly, watching Andy realizing what she means. "And why on earth would I get up from bed to drink alcohol at" she checks the clock and squints "midnight?" she asks, but then just as the words are out, she remembers the dark bottles lining the back of a cupboard. She remembers Booker's glass, filled with heavy drinks, waiting as he was sleeping on the kitchen table in the early morning. 

And she sees Andy closing in on herself, because who would let someone drink away their problem, if they cared about them. Fuck. Nope. Abort. 

"I'm-" Nile starts "I'm going to heat up the boiler. Do you want some?" she aims for light, she falls so far behind, it rings badly in her mouth. Andy's face goes down and she shakes her head. "No" it's a whisper "thank you". She closes her book and stands up "If you need anything, wake me up" she says, with a small smile and she passes by Nile, kissing her goodnight on the forehead and leaving her there, feeling lost and small in that old world of immortals. 

Nile swears to herself. It's all fine and good to get in someone's face for their mistakes, it's even better to be also more considerate of others. She goes to the kitchen, mechanically putting water to boil, taking out a cup and waiting for the noise to fill the kitchen. She'll think of something to say, to Andy, in the morning, first thing. Apologizing. Because it's not Andy's fault for thinking it, and it's definitely not her fault for letting Booker drink away his despair, and it's not Booker's fault either if it seemed like the best option. Circumstances, and the world, and everything in between. It's a clusterfuck. They're doing their best. That's what matters. 

Nile sighs and sits down at the table. She plays around with her phone, turning it in her hand, and it takes her a moment to see the constant red light signaling a message has arrived. 

_I apologise. I won't use that phrasing again. I am the last person who could patronize anyone, after what I did. After what I've done._

Nile sees the message, reads it once, twice and has to close her eyes. Because now she's wondering, where he is, what's the time. She remembers him telling her about his sons, being the only one left behind. She thinks about how hard he tried, for them. It's hard. She can't say she wouldn't also try, if it could help her family in the future. It would be hypocritical of her. She can't tell what would happen. She can't predict her reactions. 

That's not how the world works. 

Nile drinks a sip, hot water burning her throat, taking her away from blinks of coldness and wetness and screams muffled by waves. She feels wide awake, her mind turning and turning, thinking. She wonders now, if Booker is taking care of himself, or if he's still trying to drown his pain, as he had seemed inclined to do before, even with the team around. 

She feels bad, in the warmth of their shared house, with a supportive team next door and a secure comfort. 

Because how can you just leave someone on their own and expect for them to get better, to see their wrongs and acknowledge it. Nile has studied, even a bit. Before all this mess, she'd been tempted by a degree in law. That's partly why she had ended up in the army. For the justice. For helping. And she had read a bit, on the justice system, its consequences. About prison. About leaving people to fend for themselves, without help. Because they don't deserve it. And how they fall deeper down next. 

She remembers Booker, and his glass full of wine or worse. She sees him, shoulders slumping as they had left him for a hundred years of solo thinking. 

She thinks about restorative justice. How she had been dubious, about the help it brought to the victims. And the results with the convicted. She thinks she's got a hundred years to see. It's a long time to experiment with ideas.

_Ok._

_I want a proper apology. And an explanation. For what you did. Everything._ She types down.

 _And you need a punch to the face._ She sends too, a second behind. Because she's still her, and there is the team to think about. _At the very least._ she finally adds.

 _Wait 100 years._ the first text says, and then

_And get in line for the punch. Older people first._

Wrong answer, old man, she thinks, and she doesn't see the clock ticking as she keeps on writing text messages. 

It's a back and forth, she harps at him more time than not. She sees through his text the wobbliness of his fingers at some point, but he keeps on replying. Dutifully answering any question she has, about himself, his past. The team. Their life. Quỳnh too, once. It's restrictive the message format, and she can't write names, or places , she's had that security talk with Copley once before, but they make it work. 

And so, she spends the night texting away with him. Harpooning him and trying him out, lashing out all the pain she has received from the others and asking him why. Why. Why. Why. 

She doesn't see the time go by. 

\- - - 

The next morning, she startles awake when she feels her phone slipping from her hand. She goes to catch it on the floor, by the table's foot where she believes it must have fallen, when she realizes that Nicky's standing next to her. 

"So that's what you were up to last night." He says, blinking at the phone. 

"I-" she squares her jaw. She shouldn't be ashamed. He can't judge her for that.

"I was sick of it. I needed answers." 

Nicky scrolls through the conversation in silence. With how old the phone is, she knows he isn't opening the messages, just reading the frequencies. And the number of texts exchanged. 

"Did you get them?" He looks at her, his eyes are clear but she sees his jaw straining. 

She nods. Somehow, she hadn't learned everything. It didn't make anything better. Booker had still been wrong, almost killing Andy, and putting them through pains none of them deserved. But, she could see, where he came from. Why he did it. It made her less torn. She felt lighter, having ranted about her side of the mess too. Booker wasn't forgiven, but she felt freer. It was a first step, maybe to something better. 

Nicky breathes out. "Is he-" he gives her the phone back. "Is he alright?" 

His voice almost breaks at that, and she sees him swallow. It's like he's forcing himself to care, to get over the pain and the anger he's felt. Nile almost tells him it's not fair, for himself, to do that, to try and erase that past. Before she can tell him anything, there's noise coming from the corridor. 

Nile shakes her head quick and short, because let's be honest, she had sensed Booker's drunkenness, and Nicky's eyes are veiled for a second. He's angry, he had confessed he had wanted to kill him, still does sometime, but there's also regrets in his eyes now, for deciding to leave Booker on his own. He had fucked up, bad, but the bond they had shared, the brotherhood they had built, it can't be erased. Even by the worst mistakes. It's still a link, between them. It's still there. To kill or to spare.

"I could-" Nile gestures with her phone, she could tell them about the discussion she's had with Booker. She could call him, for all of them to sit and talk it out. If it could help.

But Nicky shakes his head "Don't let Joe see your phone." he says, and he leaves her there, his coffee untouched as he goes back to his room, catching Joe' sleeve on his way and walking him back too. 

She glances down at her phone, opening the last message.

 _Next time we talk_ she had written. _For real._

 _Anytime kid_ he had written back.

 _Anytime_ he had sent straight afterward. It's strange, that it makes her smile. But she doesn't mind as must as she maybe should have. Small victories are made one step at a time.


	2. Chapter 2

Nile sends messages now, a few some days, sometimes none at all. Booker always reply, prompt and coherent enough. At least that's what it feels like with such small messages. She can't really tell, and she's started realizing, with what the team had let on about him, it could very well be a facade. 

She doesn't know how to feel about that.

She wants to try and walk over that bridge, to him, because she is sure now that they have things to talk about, whether it be the betrayal that still burns deep in the team or Quỳnh, things that they are both shouldering. But she feels a twist in her heart when the phone is in her hand and the others are around. Worst of all is when Nicky watches her. The phone suddenly weights her down, after it burns cold in the pocket of her sweater. And she sees him turn his gaze away, his jaw locked and tension running thin through him and gone in a blink. 

But she stills sees it. 

That's her consequences. 

A week after she's started whatever it is with Booker, she sits down besides Nicky as he is reading in the back garden of their current hide out. It's Portugal, and the sun is still warm even if autumn is settling in. Joe is out, city gazing and most likely trying to pick up something new to eat for the evening. He does hate to cook, always complaining he doesn't have any skill. 

(Sometimes, Nile wishes Andy was as honest about her own cooking talent as Joe, but there's no point trying to change a thousand years old mentality carved into an iron-clad being. So Nile will just have to get used to potatoes when it’s Andy’s turn to feed them...)

Nicky looks up as she sits and sends her a smile, but his eyes turn back to the text quickly. Nile can see the focus he is putting there is overkilled, and she clearly disturbs him. She wonders how long it would take for him to tell her so. 

"Don't" Nicky says out of the blue.

Nile blinks."What?" 

"You are thinking. A lot, about what you want to say to me. Don't. Just say it." He turns a page, tugs the postcard he is using as a bookmark there and closes the book slowly. 

"What are you reading?" Nile feels silly at her attempt to evade the issue that brought her there, now. 

Nicky isn't fooled. "It's Flamenca. But I honestly doubt your interest in medieval romance." 

Nile smiles sheepishly and asks "In original language?"

Nicky doesn't even bother replying. The look is enough to tell her she is not fooling him at all. She huffs and sprawls down on the grass beside his deckchair, giving up trying to look dignify and cool and poised. She is a mess internally, so she vows to look like one externally, as much as physically possible. 

"I gather from your pained exhortations that you are having what is called a crisis." Nicky declares, from his chair.

"Nicky. The least you could do, when seeing someone in as much mental pain as I am currently showing, is tone down the cynicism."

He shrugs. "Never worked with Andy."

"I'm not her."

"You have no idea how much you're alike, the two of you." 

She eyes him dubiously. "You would have been an awful priest, back in the days." 

"Who said anything about me being a priest?" 

Nile turns on her stomach, to watch him more easily. "You weren't?" 

Nicky lets his head fall back to the deckchair. "Nile, I'm not giving you a history lesson on the crusades. This is not what you're here for. What is on your mind?" 

"How do you know?" Nile mutters, plucking a blade of grass in front of her and playing with it, before sighing and giving up completely.

She hides her head in her crossed arms as she asks "Is it wrong? Me, talking to Booker?"

Nicky doesn't reply and when she glimpses at him through her thin braids fanned out around her, she sees his closed face and cold eyes, detached, focused on the skyline. Maybe she shouldn't have pried. 

"Does it feel wrong?" he asks her, and his gaze breaks and she sees a different light now, more pain and doubts shining there for the first time. He is as lost as she is, it feels strange to realize it. 

"For you..." Nile mumbles.

"Nile" Nicky says softly "I'm not asking about me, about Joe or Andy. I'm not asking about Booker either. Does it feel wrong, to you?" 

Nile takes a breath and straightens on her elbows, looking down at the grass. "I did it for me." she says, guilt lashing through her voice " but you're all-"

"Nile. We don't matter in that question." Nicky says, not leaving space for any arguments. "What matters here is whether or not it feels right for you, as long as you're not putting yourself in danger. Are you in danger right now, talking to Booker?" 

Nile blinks at him, and she wants to laugh at the sheer madness of that question because Booker is as harmless now as a rain soaked street kitten. But she feels the seriousness of his tone and when she catches his eye her smile dies down. "No. On the contrary. With Quỳnh-" she almost hits herself when the name comes out, but Nicky nods and so she goes on "- he is the only one who knows. He understands. I think I needed that. I know, you're all there for me, but I don't want to add that to what's already going on and it feels like too much to ask of you and..." 

"I understand." Nicky says. She guesses he does, when he and Joe still hadn't met Andy and Quỳnh, it would have been similar. And yet...she can't help but think that at least they had someone to rely on. She thinks back to Booker, alone in that spiraling curse, and herself now, with a far-away helping hand and yet surrounded by people who are there for her. It can get lonely, when no one shares your demons.

"I feel..." she tries and then she looks up at Nicky "Like I'm betraying you. All of you, by talking to him. Is this what I am doing?" 

She doesn't want to dwell on the despair tainting her tone. 

Nicky closes his eyes, and she can see clearly how much pain it brings him, to talk about Booker. It's only been a few months. It's nothing to these people. It's too much for Nile, with everything she faces and everything she thinks about. She doesn't think Booker has that distance either with the matter. 

"Are you telling him things about us?" Nicky voice is clinical, detached, as if he is protecting himself from the truth and yet still wants to be sure. 

"No. I wouldn't. I...asked him questions mostly. I send him stupid images I find online. It's not much of a conversation for now, just, making sure there is someone at the other end of the line." 

Nicky breathes out, as if the possibility of Booker hearing about them was more painful than any other alternatives.

"Thank you" he says simply, and Nile has to blink. 

"Of course" she replies. "I'm never going to talk about the team, these things are not mine alone to share..."

"Still. Thank you, for considering us in there." It sounds forced, almost as if Nicky is trying to convince himself of what he is saying.

She sees him struggling with thoughts silently, and his focus sends a chill down her spine. That's what makes him a good sniper she thinks. "Did he-" he starts, but then stops himself, as if asking about Booker is already too much for him. As if he berates himself for considering the man's side in the matter. And for not considering it too. "Did he tell you anything about us?" 

Nile's breath stops. She hadn't even considered that option. She thinks back to the messages and a realization hits her." Actually, no. I can't say he has... We did speak about how it would be like for you, if I talked with him.And he did try to tell me I shouldn’t? And he said you all had precedence to punch him first when we saw him again, so I had to get in line and wait before throwing him my own punch... but I can't really say he has told me anything. About you."

The answer is left in the air, Nicky seems to be mulling it over. Nile doesn't press. 

"Do you know why you did it?" he asks, after a while. Nile has destroyed the blade of grass in her hands and has started on destroying another when he speaks. She startles.

"Yeah. No doubting that. I know." She says, simply. Going into the details of her late-night anxiety and terrors are not something she wants for now.

Nicky is looking at her again. "Did it help you?" he asks her, repeating the question from a week earlier. As if he needs to be sure. 

"Yes.” Nile feels stronger now, more secure in what she did and why. She isn’t surprised this time around. She has had time to think about it. “I felt like I was missing some parts of reality. And I felt like, not talking to him, and seeing you all, your happiness, your pure simple joy at being alive here and now, it made me hate him for giving up on you all. And it felt wrong. I despised him but...I don't have any good reason to hate him myself? I don't know, I don't mean to sound disparaging of you-"

"Nile. Stop considering us in your path. Think about yourself, for once?" Nicky chides her, and Nile bows her head. 

"I shouldn't hate him, for something he did that I don't properly understand the roots of and that didn't touch me as much as it did you. I still have a hard time with immortality...I'm not anywhere close to questioning how I will handle it if I ever want to stop on living. I had a glimpse of why he did it, but I think I needed more..."she trails of, unsure. 

"That's fine, Nile. We all go through that, at some stage in our life." 

"I just don't want to burden you with that" Nile whispers, as she glances back at the house and sees Andy walking around the living room now. 

"It if helps you, we don't matter, Nile. Be a little selfish, for once in your life." Nicky says, and it sounds wrong. His words are true, but Nile feels like she's not the one these are aimed for. "Don't let others dictate what you should be doing, or how you should handle things. Even just out of consideration for their well-being..." Nile blinks at the emptiness in Nicky's words, as if his soul has given up and he is on auto-pilot. She feels the weight of them, and yet his voice smarts. When she glances at him, his eyes are shining, and his mouth is twisted. 

Nile opens her mouth, but Nicky shakes himself up and stands with a sigh.

"You know, I think it's good that you're talking to him. I... I don't think I could, just yet.” he admits, head hidden from her “But I'm also glad that you and him, have someone to talk to when needed." He turns around, and looks at Andy, who was joined by Joe as soon as she lit the TV screen.

Nicky's eyes glint at the domesticity. "I think...we might have failed him, the three of us. We tried to be there for him...but I think he felt guilty, having rebuked us to stay with his family when they were still alive. When he came to us, after they all died, after being proven wrong and having us proven right... he never questioned what we were saying, never said no. To anything. He never complained, he would huff and sigh, but he always adapted." Nicky looks remorseful and Nile has a hard time listening to the hurt in his voice. "I hadn't realized how compliant he had been, about everything, until you came and started giving us a piece of your wind over almost every decision we took." Nile winces, and Nicky smiles at her "it's not a rebuke. It's good, to know that you're ready to stand your ground. That you just don't do things because we ask you to... I think that's what lost Booker in the end. " he declares, his eyes dark. "The desire to never be in the way, to always be there for us, after having lost everything else, and not letting himself open up enough about his family... as if it were a burden we didn't want to hear. I can't imagine, if you felt like you were a burden with Quỳnh, what it could have been like for him. He never said a word about it, after he got her story from Andy. It didn't make things better I think." 

"Can't think it did" Nile agrees. "I don't know where I am going with this. I just don't want to make you feel like I'm taking a side or anything, mostly..." she gets up too, getting rid of bits of grass on her clothes. 

"You took a side when you came with us Nile." Nicky says kindly "but it doesn't mean you can't understand what the other side wants. What happened. It's alright." 

She looks at the living room, where she sees the others chatting about something in a magazine that Joe is brandishing like a trophy. 

"You said Joe shouldn't know..." 

Nicky sighs. "It's too raw, for Joe. He liked to think they were close...so Booker's actions..." 

"It hurts. I understand." 

"It hurts. It doesn't mean he won't get over it. Or that he will. But there is something that he needs to face first. And Joe can have a hard time facing things when they really matter to him." 

Nile sends Nicky a side glance as they walk back to the house. "I feel there is a story in there somewhere..."

"When isn't there?" Nicky smirks and she smiles back.

As he opens the door to let them in, she hears him whisper "Don't feel like you can't talk to us Nile. We're here for you, no matter what." 

"I know" she says , putting her hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight "I know". 

Her phone rings just then, and she sees Nicky's eyes traveling to the pocket of her sweater at the sound. There is no tension in his shoulders, he just waits for her as she fishes the phone out. She looks up, sending him a confused look as he just watches her. 

"I'm glad" he says. "Maybe, in some times, we can make Booker see that too..." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an actual update for the main story of this *waves around* thing I have started. I have written a few parallel stories already (the burner phone is only the start unfortunately), I have a lot of ideas, but getting them to come in the right order is the most difficult and making it take shape while the main story also goes on is...not easy! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your reading!
> 
> See you for the next chapter/work (I have honestly no idea how this will end up)


	3. Chapter 3

Of course, Joe had to know, at some point, one way or another, that Nile was speaking with Booker. 

Of course, Nile had wanted something more...slow.Subtle.

Nile had wanted more time, of course. 

  
But there wasn't any, not when Joe caught her phone ringing and saw the number on it, and she was busy explaining to Andy why, no, you can't take the bike when it's raining because you're mortal now, and we don't want you to die slipping from a rained-down street. Yes, Andy. Thank you, Andy. Let's have tea yeah? Great. Tea.

Oh. Joe. Uh. 

That's my phone? Why are you on my phone? 

Who are you calling Joe? 

Fuck. 

\- - - 

Nile would have jumped at Joe's throat if she hadn't thought it would make matters worse. Because Joe had her phone up to his ear, and was silently waiting for someone to pick up on the other side of the phone. 

Who was she kidding. He was waiting for Booker to answer. 

  
Of course. 

"Who is Joe calling, Nile?" Andy asked behind her, confusion in her voice at the sight of Joe with Nile's phone in his hands, and Nile felt her body thrum with the edge of battle nearing. Because there was going to be a battle, a moral one, and she needed all the protection and artillery she could to diffuse the fight and prevent killings. Even metaphorical ones. 

No one needed to die tonight. Even through words and misplaced emotions. 

So Nile breathed, felt her spine straighten and harden at her back.

"Booker." She said with an eye on Joe. Joe's eyes glinted, a cynical smile coming to his lips as he heard her admit it. She thought it was disappointment in his eyes, but Nile didn't care. Coddling was over. It was the battle field. In the kitchen, at 5 on a Friday. Best time. 

She took a seat in front of the cooling teapot and helped herself to a mug. 

"What did you do Nile?" Andy came to stand beside her, watching Joe with apprehension. 

Nile sipped her mug, ignoring the question and focusing all her inner strength on observing Joe's reactions when Booker would finally pick up.   
She didn't have to wait long. There was a mutter from the other end of the phone and Joe's face twisted. 

It sounded for once, like Booker had things to tell. Worst luck ever, poor man.

Nile would have given anything to have Nicky there, to see him react to Joe's emotions, to explain to her all the nuances that it meant. Nile wasn't a long-lived immortal yet, but she wanted to boast herself that she could see a few things, even if it had only been three months since they had started living together. 

She watched Joe's eyes, his hand on the phone, his swallow. She read anger.   
She watched his shoulders hunching over the back of the chair he was leaning on. She read fear, for Booker's words and for their personal stands in the clusterfuck.  
She heard the hitch in his breath, short but there. She felt the pain, at listening to the man that had betrayed him and recovering the brother he had had for centuries back.

"Hello, Sebastien" he said, voice short.

Nile clenched her hands around her mug. She took another sip. She would wait and see. 

"Nile? Uh. I've seen you've been talking, the two of you." Joe says, voice falsely light. His head was hidden from her, looking down as he was at the chair beneath his hands. Who was he kidding. Nile wanted to snicker. He was tense as a bow, ready to fight back at whatever came his way. "A lot, at that. How's the exile doing, Seb, eh?" the bitterness was harsh in his voice. His voice had risen, almost unthinkingly and there was a crash from the living room.

"What's going on?" Nicky called out.

"I hear you've been having a good time." Joe went on, looking up at Nile with a blank face "Which alcohol are you onto now? Gin? Whisky?"

Nile clenched her teeth. She couldn't believe it. The only time Booker needed her, she would be away. The only time he was truly back in his alcohol, Joe had to be the one on the phone. She felt betrayed. If Booker hadn't be drunk, she would have showed him, what it did to talk to people. To be there, on both sides of a mess. If he hadn't be drunk, it might have played a part in him coming back sooner, in them forgiving him maybe quicker, forgiving themselves too, for that matter. She felt betrayed, but then a thought crossed her mind, that would shake her entire moral ground.

How could she assume, her, Nile, not even-30 something American, could say she would understand the most a 200 years old and counting French man. How could she have so much esteem of herself, that she would just do better, be smarter, at reaching out to him than those centuries old people who were part of his team, his fucking family for so long. And whom he betrayed, without a blink. Them, who didn't see anything.

Nile swallowed suddenly, putting down the mug gently on the kitchen table.

She had a hard time admitting to herself that maybe, Joe was more adept than her at seeing through Book's lies. That maybe, she didn't know everything, she didn't see everything about him either. Although that's what she had thought at first.

When she had been so sure they had been open, to one another. 

How childish. She bit her lips.

Andy sat heavily in the chair next to Nile, looking at her with incomprehension. "You have been in contact? With him?" She asked. Nile couldn't answer. She had never said a word to her, even though she knew she would ask Copley after him every other day, every other week, depending on the time, and the general feeling. She knew Andy wanted to follow Booker. She needed to know what would happen to him, how he would fare. And she, she had known. And she hadn't said a word. In the past month.

Nile had a hard time breathing. She saw the betrayal of Booker replaying back here, at their own sphere, with her this time as the betrayer. The liar. How could she have thought for one second not talking about it would be better? Andy was still looking at her, and Joe was towering in front of her, listening to whatever Booker was saying. She felt alone, against two of them. She felt loss. 

Almost in danger.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Andy asked. 

Nicky stopped in the doorway, watching Joe on the phone. His eyes widened as he caught the bright pink color of Nile's phone in his lover's hand. Nile sent him a glance, trying to understand where he would be in all of this, but it was evident that he would be focused on how Joe would react. She couldn't blame him. She also was.

"You don't get to know, bastard" Joe snarled suddenly, and Nile jerked back from the table, her hands coming to cross over her stomach, feeling her breath catch "You don't get to know about us. You're in exile, remember? You don't get to talk to Nile either, hear me? You're in exile Sebastien. Exile." Nile opened her mouth to protest, but Joe's voice broke and she felt brittle.

Could she really chide him on his behavior, his reaction, when it hurt him so clearly, so sharply? She suddenly felt the guilt washing over her and settling in her guts. Joe almost choked as he spoke, and Nile could only cross her arms tighter around herself.

Nicky was at Joe's back in a matter of seconds, touching his upper arm. 

"That means no contacts, you bastard." Joe breathed out. "No contacts. Why would you get to know about us, when we don't get to know shit about you and your thoughts?"

Nile hunched over, closing her eyes. How could she have not realized, the pain it would bring, to call him behind their backs. How could she have done that.

"What did he say to you?" Andy asked, blandly, coldly, ignoring Joe entirely. Nile's shoulders tensed. She shook her head, not wanting to lose a word of the conversation unfolding on the phone, but Andy wasn't having any of it. "What did he tell you, Nile?" She repeated, leaning closer to her. She hated the doubt, the accusation marring her tone. As if Booker had been the one to start it all. As if she wasn't old enough to handle herself. 

But maybe she wasn't, if she had to be honest. The doubt lingered in her head. What if Booker had played her too, like he had played them.

But at the thought, the mere possibility that she had been manipulated, although she had started it all, she felt her core rebel. No. Just, no. It wasn't true. It wasn't true.

She had contacted him. He had been there for her when she needed him. It had never been the other way around, until today of all day, when he called and she wasn't there. It had never been the other way around. He had talked to her, helped her, with Quỳnh. And that, she couldn't just put it on the side and claim that yes, maybe they were right. Maybe he had been a bastard, pushing her to think and act so that she could in some way help him out. In everyone's back.

Nile was a fucking adult. She might not be centuries old yet, but it doesn't mean she doesn't know a thing or two about life. About morals. About responsibilities.

She locked her jaw, her eyes snapping at Joe, who was shaking his head. She would face the consequences. She would face them, and she had for that to see them unfold. No cowardice. Her own making. The consequences. 

She felt Andy's eyes on her. She tried to breathe. 

"Don't use her as an excuse! Don't use her at all. You have no right to do that." Joe snarled. Nicky stepped closer, holding tightly onto Joe's midriff, trying to settle him. Joe's eyes locked with Nile's, and she felt as if the both of them would just crash down, a million pieces over the ground once this was over. She wasn't sure they would be able to pick themselves up. She read the betrayal in Joe's eyes, the understanding, everything unfolding. She read a swirl of mixed emotions that she couldn't place, but they were there and they weren't going anywhere. 

"What did you tell her that she would talk to you so many times a week?" Joe asked, voice heavy in meanings. He had clearly heard Andy's accusations and had gone straight with them, good soldier that he is. Nile felt her rage bubbling, her inability to act dragging her down. She could only watch as everything went sideways. And fell down. 

"What did you promise her?" Joe asked again, softly. 

Nile's eyes widened."Hey, no!" she cried out, "That's not on! You ask me that!". She got up as Nicky gripped on Yusuf tighter, trying to keep him in place. His clear eyes were focused on her and her reaction. 

That's when she realized, that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't so much to prevent Joe from reacting so much as to protect him. From her. From her, who started listening to Booker. Her, who had for weeks now, secretly spoken with a man who had put them all in danger once. Who was to say he wouldn't try again? She would. She would. But only because she was the only one who spoke to him, out of all of them. She was the only one who knew. And even Copley, even Andy, they only had the bare minimum of ideas (he was still alive, still breathing). 

Nile didn't like to think it could be an option but then again, she had been hiding her conversations with Booker. And after such a betrayal, anything could go down too.

"You don't get to-" she started saying, aiming for a strong composure because no reason to stop now that he had dragged her there.She felt her voice faltering.

"She has us." Joe said coldly, completely overlooking her words and clearly replying to whatever Booker was saying. Nile felt dread rise from her heart. She was thrown one way and back. Siding with them, their pain, or understanding Booker. And his trials. 

"She has us" Joe repeated. And Nile, standing there, watching out for the crash, felt the last month gather itself in front of her. One month. She saw the daily exchanges with Booker suddenly taking shape in front of her, held harshly in Joe's hand. The texts, the memes, and the nigh-long talks over anything that came at them. Quỳnh. Immortality. Philosophy. Always Quỳnh. Literature. Art. Laughter and inside jokes. Because of Quỳnh. She saw the relation they had built, rebuilt from the scratches of the betrayal of the team. Thanks to Quỳnh.

And she saw it all, shattering as Joe said "She doesn't need you, Booker. And you certainly don't need her, you traitor."

He has no right, Nile thought as pain slashed at her core. He might be older and he might have his own issues with Booker, but it didn't make it right for him to snatch that away, to take _him_ away from her. He has no right. 

She couldn't hold it in anymore. She needed for this to end, now. A month back. Ever.

Her guts were twisting and Nile hears herself speak.

"Maybe she can decide on her own like the fucking adult she is, you fucker!" she snapped, as Joe opened his mouth again. 

The silence was heavy on them, and she saw the surprise in Joe's eyes. She felt like she was mirroring it too. They were lost, it was too much, too soon. It wasn't supposed to happen, at all. They were both breakable here and now. But Nile was a fighter. She was a survivor. She wouldn't go down like that.

She would go further, to Hell and back. 

"Give me back my phone, Joe." she asked with a leveled tone, extending her hand to him. She felt like shattering. But she would hold onto anything.

"Give me back my phone. I want to speak to Booker." 

Nicky looked unblinkingly at her, but she felt the accusations in his clear eyes. As if she had picked a side. And it wasn't the one he had wanted, he had hoped for. How could she have ever thought she wouldn't pick a side, when she went behind everyone's back and started talking to the man who had betrayed them all. Over centuries. And here she was, waltzing in gently. 

What a feast.

Nile breathed, Joe looked on and Nicky tensed behind him. Andy's hand was a fist over the table. Nile only breathed.

Joe suddenly threw her the phone before stepping away harshly. Nile only heard him striding away, Nicky leaving in his wake, as she caught her phone and brought it to her ear. 

Only Andy stayed, silent and still.

Judging. 

"Booker?" Nile asked, voice trembling. She felt weak, suddenly. To fight with friends, with the only people she could rely on now.

And alone. So alone, unsupported and misunderstood. Because of an egoistic desire. An ego the size of the Eiffel tower. And stupid ideas of redemption. Look at what it brought. Look at what had happened. 

"You - you need to speak, together." Booker said, sounding strangely collected"I- I'll hung up. Just - don't be stubborn, yeah? They are in pain. It deserves to be respected. I'm the last person who could impose, and I don't want you to impose on them for me. Every one needs their own time, for everything." 

She heard the slur in his speech, something she had never heard before, not when they were talking. Not for the past weeks, at least.

"Booker! Don't you dare -" Nile screamed, raw and angry as she heard him shuffle around, ready to hang up on her. He was leaving her, abandoning her, now. That bastard. That traitor. How could he leave her alone now.

"You'll be fine, kid." He said, softer. "Remember, you're the functioning adult of the two of us." she heard him joke but it fell flat, because she could hear his watery tone, his breathlessness, his struggle at the other end of the phone. 

"Booker!" She screamed as he hung up. Maybe it was too much, maybe it was too hard, but she sat back down, tired and drained from the little words she had exchanged. 

"Not your kid, your asshole!" she whispered, as she crumbled on the table. And she felt lonely when Andy only patted her on the shoulder, as she cried her tears out and sobbed like she hadn't sobbed in the last decade. Not your kid, she thought again and again. She wondered if it was true though, at the pain she felt and the loss she drowned in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading - and sorry for leaving you hanging like this ! The next part is going to come up quickly! It's just that the chapter would have been the longest of them all if I had put everything at once ^^"
> 
> I swear, it will get better. It's sort of the worst (for this work of the serie anyway...)!


	4. Chapter 4

Nile woke up in the same position. She didn't know what time it was, but she saw that Andy had left, and it was dark inside. Her head was killing her, she felt wretched and damned, and cursed.

Damn tears, damn heart. 

She took her head in her hands, her phone pushing against her forehead as she didn't let go of it.

She would never let go of it again. She couldn't let anyone else take advantage of her only communications outside of the house. She thought about going up, sleeping in her bed, and then felt like a coward because what if someone heard her, what if she came upon one of the others. She didn't want to think about it, but it was true. She was running away from the issue. 

She breathed out, feeling her lungs push out the air weakly, almost wringing it out painfully. 

There was then a muffled thud, right in front of her.

Nile wrenched herself back, almost sending her chair tumbling over, head snapping up and eyes wide. 

Joe was sitting on the other side of the table, watching her silently. He had a cup in his hand. And he had put one on the table in front of her.

She blinked at him. 

"Drink" he said, voice soft. "It'll help with the headache. Chamomile."

She didn't reply, only watching the tiredness etched in his face and the tensed grip he held on his cup.   
She picked up her own, shakily. She took it to her breast, feeling the warmth burn through her cold fingers, heating up her sweater. She looked at the dark waters sloshing in the cup. She thought about Quỳnh, lost in dark waters, screaming. Still.

She thought about Booker. Who couldn't sleep because of it.

Booker.

And Joe, who was sitting right in front of her.

"I'm sorry" she said. She couldn't dismiss the weight on her heart any longer, not with Joe facing her. She had messed up. She had been selfish. She had hurt him, hurt them all with her egoistic ideas. 

She only had one thought in her mind. That she had needed Booker, she couldn't deny it. But maybe, they had needed her too. Andy, Nicky and Joe. Maybe, they had needed something else from her, something more. And they definitely didn't need for her to go behind their backs, behind their wills. Fuck everything up. Become the poison in their mists. 

"I'm sorry" she repeated.

Her voice was broken, her throat tight. She couldn't even begin to believe it would be enough, by Joe, to hear her say so. Not after everything. Not after the call.

As the silence dragged on, she felt her heart twist on itself, wrenching and spinning with a free fall of what ifs. What now. 

She had brought it upon them, she had contacted Booker, kept the talk up. She couldn't be angry at him for trying to reach out to her when she wasn't around. She couldn't be angry at Joe for happening on the missed calls. She could only be angry at herself, for letting everything go. For not being more careful...

For not telling anyone what she wanted to do. What she was trying to do. As if hiding away was not what had led to this situation in the first place.

Her eyes were lost in her tea, as she recalled the accusations aimed at Booker.

He never said anything. He never told anyone. He kept everything in. 

And she did that too. At her own level.

Nile felt tears prickling at her eyes again. Damn tiredness. Damn that immortality business. She clenched her fingers around her cup, her breath picking up. 

"I apologize" 

She blinked at Joe. His voice had been scratchy, as if he had been screaming and crying for the past hours. It was soft. He looked at her, not hiding behind his mug like she had done. He looked straight at her, no side glances, no escape.

She felt chastised, for not acting likewise.

"You don't -" she started saying, because he had nothing to apologize for. She had started the whole mess. She had lied to them. She shouldn't have in the first place. She couldn't understand how she would have ever thought it would be a good idea. 

"I do." Joe replied. "I apologize, for taking your phone and using you as an excuse to...make a point to Sébastien." 

His words sounded rehearsed, as if he had thought about it for a long time. She wondered how long he had waited for her to wake up. 

"I'm the one who-" Nile swallowed. "I apologize. I shouldn't have started speaking to Booker, without telling you. It was wrong. I should have seen what it would mean, what it implied...but I was selfish. And I didn't think what it would mean to you..."

Joe shook his head. "It's not...I feel like we've failed you, Nile." He said, softly. "That you felt you had to go behind our backs. It should never come to that in a team." his voice broke in the middle, and Nile felt all the resentment Joe held for Booker's actions, compacted in that guilty sentence. 

"You didn't fail me" Nile replied quickly, because she couldn't bare for him, them, to take the blame for her stupidity. "You didn't fail me. You, all of you, you are everything to me, now. You help me through, you support me, hell, you even stand me when I'm in a mood and I know for a fact it can be painful." She tried to lighten the mood. "I... it's not on you. Don't believe it's on you. To be fair, it's not Booker either..." she tried, gauging Joe's reactions. It didn't miss. She saw tension slowly curling up his shoulder, locking his neck and his jaw. 

"It's me. I just... I needed someone to speak to, who would understand..." and Nile stalled. She didn't want to blame them but how could she go around the fact that mostly, she had needed someone to help her through Quỳnh's nights. They knew her, they loved her, but they had lost the woman, their friend, and she couldn't bring herself to talk to them about her. The pain, would be too much. 

Nile clenched her teeth, before snapping out quickly as if it burned her "Quỳnh." 

Joe took a deep breath, and didn't reply for a while. 

"Quỳnh" he repeated, finally.

Nile felt even guiltier at the tone, blank and devoid of emotions. 

"I can't, I won't make you go through what I see every time I need to talk about it. It's... just because I've told you about it once, doesn't make it any easier the next night. Or anytime. I know you hold her dear. But I...can't sleep with her in my head. Every night. I can't deal with the pain, the rage. I can't tell you about all that, because it hurts. It hurts and there's nothing we can do about it, you or me."

"Book understands" Joe said evenly as she finished speaking. 

"Book understands." She acknowledges.

"You can't tell me" Joe tried, strangling himself a bit "that you only talk about Quỳnh, Nile, though. You had 5 missed calls. I didn't even count the messages." 

Nile made a face, she could hear the shortness in his voice, the frustration. She owed him the truth. She couldn't hide behind Quỳnh. And she wouldn't. 

"It started because of Quỳnh. And then, it was because you've all got your ways and I didn't understand them. And I was sort of new to the whole thing. And it was about the art in the basement, and the books in the living room, and what we would get up to, how we could go on. After what he did. What he wanted to do now. What I was learning. It became about everything. My place here, immortality. The future. My family. Sometimes Quỳnh.Everything." She breathed deeply. " I needed someone who would understand."

Joe nodded, but she could see him working around something in his mind. He was still angry. He was still raw, and pained. It hurt for her to see him like this, knowing she was the cause of this. In part, at least. 

"I apologize" he breathed finally, feeling her worried eyes on him "It's not your fault. I shouldn't be angry. I..." 

"You have every right to be" she cut him, because she was sick of people saying should and shouldn't. There wasn't a guide to this clusterfuck. They were doing what they could. Not what they should.

"I really don't. Not at you. Not even...at him." 

Nile blinked, not knowing if she had heard it right. 

"You-"

"It's also on us, if he did what he did. I got angry at you, and at him, earlier...because I felt you had been there for him when I couldn't." 

Nile bit her lips, trying not to cry. She could see the conflict coursing through Joe's eyes.

"I thought I was his friend. I told him everything. I thought he did the same..." he rushed out "I guess it was hard, to realize that again, I wasn't there when he needed someone -" He breathed, trying to work the words out, and Nile extended her hand, to reach over to him, showing him she was there. Not touching, but being here, for him.

Joe took her hand and squeezed.

"I think I was jealous." he confessed "That you had found a way to speak to him, without even living with him. In a way I couldn't, after more than a century." 

"I don't think it's what I did." Nile amended. "I speak to him, a lot... and I forced him somehow, to tell me about why he did what he did. Why he betrayed you. Sometimes I get him to tell me about what he is doing...but I don't think I've ever had a glimpse into his heart. He's just good like that." 

"That he is. I think" Joe agreed. He looked back into his herbal tea. "Did you know he was a forger? not just for us, but before everything?" he asked her.

Nile shook her head. 

"Sometimes, I would think to myself that maybe, he had been so intent on being someone he wasn't, on being something he could never be, that he forged himself a new being...and he got lost in it."

"Why do you say that?" 

Joe looked at the ceiling. "It's just - he never was a soldier. We knew that, hell that's how it started for him. He deserted, ran away from being one. He never was a soldier, but we are, all of us. And when he came to join the team, I think we didn't even ask him if he wanted to be a part of this. We made him go, kill, protect and come back with blood on his hands. I don't think it helped, with everything else."

Nile made a face "toxic masculinity at its finest." 

Joe winced. " I guess, now that you say it." 

Nile smiled softly "it's not against you, that I say it. I guess it's just... you're right, in that he was never made to be a soldier. Now that I think about it, with everything he told me, you told me... I guess he tried to be, for you. For the team. It didn't succeed, he was hurting, but I think he was more scared of losing you, your trust and your love...that he just did what was necessary." 

"He never said no, did you know?" Joe said suddenly "To anything. He would grumble, he would sigh, but he never really complained, always adapted." he sighed "I never said anything."

Nile felt a smile come up her face. Joe frowned. 

"What?"

"Nothing" she smiled "It's just, I'm pretty sure Nicolo said exactly the same thing, a few days ago."

Joe rolled his eyes, taking a sip from his mug with a smile tugging at his lips.

"Of course he did." 

"Of course" Nile agreed. 

They fell silent for a moment, enjoying the peace that talking had brought to them. Nile could see Joe was still struggling with his emotions, but he looked more relaxed than he had in the past few weeks. She started to realize the physical toll Booker's actions had had on him. She wondered how the others were handling it too, if she hadn't seen it, noticed it. 

"Did you" Joe coughed, gesturing vaguely at the phone in her hand "get in touch with him, after?" 

Nile looked down in her hand. 

"No. He...he said we needed to talk, all of us, about it. He didn't want to be in the way and...I tried calling, but he didn't pick up." 

She saw Joe's face turning grim at her words. 

"He sounded bad" he whispered.

"Yeah. I don't think I had actually heard him slurring on the phone before" Nile confessed. 

Joe's shoulders tensed.Nile turned the hand she had left in his to grip on tightly. 

"It's not your fault." 

Joe nodded, absently.

"Joe. Yusuf. It's not your fault. You are not responsible for his reactions. Tell me you understand?" 

He looked up at her, jaw locked tight. He nodded again. She squeezed his hand. 

"I think something might have happened, before he called." she said, evenly "but I'll get in touch. First thing tomorrow, yeah? I'll let you know." 

"Don't" he replied quickly. "Don't tell me anything, unless he agrees you share it."

Nile blinked, taken aback. Joe smiled, bitterly and honestly, slightly teary "What the two of you have now, don't disregard it for our sake. Take care of it."

"I will. And I will ask him. He won't mind." she declared without a doubt.

Booker missed them all too much now. She didn't know if Joe could fathom it. But she had understood, through his words, his silences. He missed them. And she started realizing, that beneath all the anger they held and coveted each in their own way, they were missing him too. Who he had been, deep down. Him, without the pain, the distress and the wish for death. Him, the not-soldier, the forger, their younger brother.

She hoped she could help him, help them all, to bring him back, safe and sound. She prayed for that. And the next day, she would start making it right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the freeing chapter, to compensate for the last one! It doesn't solve everything but at least, Joe and Nile have a little well-needed heart-to-heart. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading my work-dump of feelings! 
> 
> (next work in the series will be the one explaining WHY Book' was calling Nile! Which lead to all the mess, Joe facing his feelings and the whole lot of them getting in touch with their emotions. It's already written, might post it tomorrow :D)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I have any idea what I am doing with this chapter? Absolutely not.  
> Do I know what I'm going to do after this chapter? Absolutely yes. 
> 
> Let's say it's a bad interlude before something else?

They've moved house yet again, never staying too long but always taking care of making the place feel used before leaving it behind. 

The first thing Nile does, every time they arrive, is send a text to Booker. She doesn't tell him where they are, she never does. Nicky had asked about it, had repeatedly told her it was fine. He could know now. It wouldn't hurt them. And just in case. For him. Joe would watch her during those conversations, watch in silence but the intent focus in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He was too proud to voice it yet, but he backed Nicky's words with his own presence every time. 

Nile agrees, she also feels a warmth in her heart, whenever she hear Nicky say so and sees Joe hovering weirdly behind him. 

She agrees, but she would never do it. 

It might not hurt them, but it would hurt him she thinks. To know where they are, without him. To be reminded of those places, where they all have lived, left a piece of themselves, of their team, before she came in. Nile is sure enough that knowing where they are, where she is, what she can see and what she can devise from what is around her and the team, while he is away, would be too much for someone like Booker. 

There might be too many secrets hidden in those places, that he doesn't want anyone to know. Even less so when he can't be there to show them himself, on his own accord. 

So Nile texts him, every time, but she never says where they are now. 

_we've arrived._ she writes. 

Her phone doesn't ring back. Book is in the habit of not answering such messages, but she always sends them. To let him know. So that he isn't cut from them all. Even if he is away, and they all need that break, she thinks cutting him clear from any information on them, would send him into despair. Considering what had led them there, it might not be the wisest thing to do then. 

It's two hours later, when they've all settled in the little house, and Nile has officially arranged what used to be an office into her own bedroom, that her phone rings. 

_Which room was it this time?_

She smiles. 

_Guess_

She can see him in her thoughts, rolling his eyes, before she even receives his reply.

_Kid. Not to be mean or anything, but consider this: 90 places. 90. Around 77 countries. I'm not counting the cultures. Please._

She laughs. 

_Ok. Consider this: 90 places. Only 1 me. I told you the previous 3 places. You can do it._

The reply comes quickly.

_Consider this: only 1 you; still 87 possibilities._

This time, it's Nile who has to roll her eyes. 

_The office, you dumbass._ she writes down, adding _just like last time._

Booker takes his time to write back.

_You want to work too much. You really need to take a break, you know._

Nile suffers in silence.

_And where am I supposed to place my bed eh? I'm not doing that in the garden. Or the basement txs._

Her phone rings.

_You would never dare._

She huffs at the implied superiority of his tone.

_Why?_

_Easy._ the message comes in, and Nile knows there's going to be a long queue of them popping in. she slumps on her bed, not even trying to reply in between the texts while a smile grows on her face. 

For the past months, Booker has been more talkative. He isn't as much protective of his thoughts or feelings. Nile is contented, she thinks she'll be happy to have him around when she see him again. To make it all the more tangible, this friendship of theirs. Because, funnily enough, they do get along. No matter the weird start. 

_The gardens are always Andy's. The greenhouses too.And you don't want to be trampled on._

_The basement, unless it's a wine cave, is the team's training place. If it's a wine cave, it's mine obv (but I do share with Andy). Like the gardens, you don't want to be trampled on._

_The attic is Joe's, unless there's a drawing room or a room lighted well enough for him to paint in. With a good view, mind._

_The kitchen is Nicky's, first and foremost. So is the terrace, if there's one. Or the corridor when it has a view of the surrounding grounds. That guy, if he could, would sleep on the roof._

_Consider that his too._

_I guess now, you're the Office girl around aren't you?_

Nile shakes her head, but she can't really disagree. She does have a thing for offices. The desks, usually wooden, where she can sit and write, and read and think, surrounded by dusky lights and books sometimes, maybe a fireplace and always a window. It's not overwhelming, but it's a place to think, to stay in. She never felt more comfortable than in those spaces. Maybe it's what's left of her student's days, when she had a small room to herself and everything to cram in it. She doesn't mind really. It feels better like this. She doesn't need much, just a comfortable place to be in.

She gets up as Joe calls for dinner, and stops in her tracks, as she walks by the door to what is the library in this house, right next to her bedroom. She sends Booker her last message of the evening. 

_And what about the library, Monsieur Le Livre?_

She means it to be lighthearted, a little quip from afar. Because who could ever wonder at the fact that of course, the library, wherever they are, had to be Booker's. The others liked to read, of course, but the library had to be Booker's. 

Just like he claimed the wine cellar, he would claim that, she thinks as she jogs down the stairs. It's in his name, after all. And the amounts of texts she has received with a new book recommendation in it, or a reference to yet another work of literature for her to read... She expects a declamation about the sanctity of a library, how someone needs to take care of these precious works of arts, how the books need to be protected from dirty hands messing with the pages or heretics who don't know how to handle a book properly. She expects, from the man nicknamed Le Livre, a declaration of war against anyone who dares so much as to enter a library to only sleep in it, a fight with someone bringing in food and drinks, a dark eye to anyone who dares to suggest the library as just another room in the house.

She fondly remembers the old librarian at her own college, frothing at the mouth with every student who brought books back without handling them properly. Who would rant at anyone who dared contests the rules of the place. She could very well see Booker, hunched over his own books, protective of the shelves, making sure even from afar that anyone who touches a book is worthy of it. 

She stops before stepping into the kitchen, and she's glad no one is around to see her when she reads the texts. The message she receives in reply is short, leaving her light-headed, wrong-footed. 

_the team._

_Always the team._

\- - -

She feels like she might have pushed where she shouldn't. And when she sits at dinner, she might be silent, and none of the others say anything about it. But Andy is by her side, and she stays there, when they clean the table and Nicky and Joe go to sleep, eyes bruised from the travel and barely standing anymore. 

Andy stays, and sits beside her, until Nile speaks up and she sees understanding downing in Andy's eyes, with a bitter fondness for the man that is implied in her question. 

"Whose is the library?" 

Andy doesn't reply straight away, but she licks her lips at last and whispers "the team" although it's clear she doesn't believe it herself. 

"Andy" Nile chides, and the woman nods.

"I know" she replies "I know, believe me. But it belongs to everyone. Come" she gestures, taking Nile up the stairs, back toward her own newly designed bedroom.

When they stop in front of the inconspicuous door of the library, Nile feels suddenly small, as if she was about to step into the unknown. Into a place that wasn't meant for her to enter, not without Booker. To guide her, show her. 

But she will have to do with Andy.

Andy looks at the door, whispering to herself before she takes a step and opens it, slowly, with reverence. 

When they walk in, the light outside shines softly on the covers, mostly leather, some modern editions popping in, haphazardly, their bright color clashing with the rest of the books. The shelves are tall, and filled to the brim, almost like every other library around their homes. Nile never really took the time to peruse the books themselves. Between training, learning, she would fall more easily on the couch with a phone than with a book. If she ever had one, it would be something she would have picked up at the bookshop of the airport or the station. 

And she was always almost too afraid to touch them. They are old, some older than she could even fathom she thinks, as her eyes glide over the darkened backs inviting her touch. Andy stands in the middle of the library, observing with a smile the books, but also Nile. 

"What do you think?" She asks, softly, unwilling to break the sanctity of the room. 

"It's impressive" Nile replies, on the same tone. She has not moved from the entrance and is almost too respectful of what coming in might mean to take another step. 

"I know." Andy smiles "It's still strange to me, to see all these books around here."

Nile is taken aback by the simplicity of the statement. 

"Why?"

"In my earliest memories, written words were not for the people. They were kept, preciously, protected. I would hear people speak texts out loud, in front of crowds. But never elsewhere. They were mostly administrative rulings, sometimes you would hear a philosopher try something out in public, or maybe see a play acted." She says softly. 

"I didn't know how to read at first. It took me meeting Quỳnh, to start considering it might be of interest to me." Andy turns away from Nile at the admission. "It would never have come to my mind to go to the places where texts were preserved. What would I do there? Open a scroll and then what? Read it through? If I had questions, I would go to a temple, a doctor, a scholar. These were the people we trusted to give us the knowledge we needed. So why should I learn to read? I had better things to do, more interesting things to see." She smiles then, looking back at Nile with a hint of nostalgia in her eyes.

"It might sound strange to you, it definitely was madness to Book, when I told him as much." 

"How-" Nile cannot formulate her question. She gestures around them both. It seems indeed strange, what she hears, when they are so overwhelmed with rows and rows of books. Even more so coming from someone as old as Andy. She realizes she considered her all-knowing in a way, and the admission that she had to learn how to read, only as an immortal, only as she aged, was baffling to Nile. 

Andy only shrugs. 

"In my time, texts or books, they weren't shared. Most people, they didn't live with them. They lived by them."

Nile nods, lost in thought, she had never wondered at how it would have been, before books such as she knows now even existed. Andy had spoken of scrolls, and Nile could hardly imagine what it would have been like, to consult one of those, instead of just taking a book out of a shelf and moving it around in her hands, under her fingers, finding what she was looking for through the flying pages, before putting it back in its place and checking another one. 

"What about Nicolo?" she asks "And Yusuf?", because surely, these two would have been more in tune with books, by their times, through their education. These books around them, they didn't come from nowhere.

But Andy only smiles more. "Unfortunately, they weren't that much better than me." 

Niles chokes on air.

"What? Oh come on!" 

"No. Well, I'll give to you they had each a religious book with them when Quỳnh and I found them... but it took them some time to acquire them. Even more to afford any new book they might have wanted for themselves. Knowledge could be bought in their time, but it wasn't cheap. It still isn't, when you think about it. It requires sacrifices..."

Nile stands silent, taking it all in.

"Yusuf knew how to read what we call now classical Arabic. He was educated enough to be able to read, and write in that language." Andy looks around, then shakes her head "He didn't need books though because he would learn everything he needed by heart, if necessary he would copy any new words, poems, thought onto his own paper." Andy chuckles at that.

"He had memorized the entirety of the poems Abu-Nuwas wrote about his male lover. He would recite it, whenever he felt like it. It drove poor Nicolo crazy as soon as he spoke enough Arabic to understand what Yusuf was mumbling. Nicolo was still young then, blushing bright red as Yusuf kept on talking." 

Nile laughs as she imagines the scene, Andy smirking. Nicolo, blushing. It almost seems impossible with how collected the man is nowadays. 

"Anyway, he didn't need a book per say. He made his own, with what he cared for." Andy walks about, fingers tracing the leather of some volumes by her side. 

"Nicolo, as for himself, he knew how to read some Latin. But reading an entire text? It was impossible. It just didn't make sense for him at first. He only needed his own language, to communicate. Latin was something else, and every book was written in Latin. So reading, it was not his thing to begin with. After that, when they started moving around, learning other languages, learning how to read them, him and Yusuf were too poor. They couldn't spare a thought to owning anything other than what they needed to live. They had good memories though, they would tell each other stories. And lots of poetry, too. The books weren't missing in their lives." 

Andy has her eyes closed, and Nile feels almost transported, floating with her in her memories, another time, another space, almost another life too. She follows the calm voice, speaking, almost endearing the words out of their well of souvenirs. " They didn't need books, as such. They needed guidance, and that, they found in the stories they heard around them. The tales, legends, the great plays on morals and values. They would listen and reflect. It was enough for them."

Nile was drifting, but Andy stopped talking longer than she expected. When she looks back at the woman, her shoulders are hunched, and her mouth is set in a thin line, fingers splashed on a few covers as if she was trying to focus her entire life around them.

Nile feels frail, as if she is about to hear something she would rather not learn yet. 

"All of this perception of texts, as sacred, as to be protected, respected... It more or less went away around here, as the printing press started expending, in Europe at least. When Booker was born, a book such as I had known, like all of us had known, it was from another time. It was not the same concept. It was not the same object." Andy walks to the edge of a shelf, and picks out a notebook which is filled to the brim with papers ready to fall off. She gives it to Nile. That's when she realizes it's not a notebook as such, but rather a gathering of loose papers.

She takes one out, then another. Not just any paper, but political leaflets. From the end of the 19th century. Nile feels faint.

Andy goes on, undisturbed as she takes yet another similar volume out of another shelf. "Sébastien grew up with pamphlets, learning French on priests' books and flyers asking the king to listen to his citizens. He learned about political tensions, opinions, clashes on papers made with cloth. He learned that if you don't have access to the knowledge in the books, because you are not allowed to understand it, because you can't afford it, the books then are made to oppress you. He learned that unless you take up those same books and use them, the knowledge they contain, the rules they make, will be made to suffocate you and silence you."

Nile had tensed, as Andy's speech grew in speed and strength. But she breathes when Andy only sighs, doesn't start a fight, although there is still a certain form of passion coming from her voice .

"For him, a book that was unique wasn't to be protected. It was exclusive. It was oppressive. Can you imagine it then, him and us? That was what he used to fight with us on, at first." Andy inhales, deeply. "It was long ago. But by then, he still cared."

Andy looks around finally, a sad smile playing on her lips. "Most of the books you see here, they are from before his time. They were gifts, or treasures we would buy to entertain ourselves during long evenings. We have a lot of them now, spread around each house, gathered over the centuries. The printing press helped, it sort of normalized it. But it was still expensive. And every single one of those books, to Sébastien, was a slap in the face when he first came with us. He is a pragmatic. He had to be, in his time. For him, a library like this" Andy gestures around grandly "this is a shame that shouldn't exist. No one to access it. No one to use the knowledge so dearly acquired. Nothing to grow from it." 

"I'll admit, we didn't understand at first. He would grow silent, snap at us sometimes, even worse when we proposed to read a book out loud, together, like we were used to do before. Because for him, it was political. Every single book was. It should have been shared, discussed vocally, used to a purpose. Everything, for him, was political. The beauty of the words, the art of the print, that meant nothing. It had to be political or it couldn't be yet at all, in his life."

"When he came with us, he would frown at our books. He would look at them, see only ever the same ones, beautiful stories with great morals at the end, but no applications. Wherever we were, he would go out, and buy the ones he could from the bookshops around. He would come back, make us sit down, or throw them our way. You might have noticed, some books lying around outside of the library. Those are his. Ours, from him. It was so we would know, we would get in touch with the mentality, the culture of the place we were in. No matter that we would say we've lived here before, we've known our ways around the cities better than the people in them now. He would always say that we had no right to think better, unless we listened to what the people of the time were saying, writing. It's almost never precious books, as you can see. It's everything that came his way. Because he knew what it meant, the flyers, the cards, the given invitations. From the badly printed romance novels, and the more carefully crafted essays edited in few numbers... He came and overwhelmed us with paper."

Nile feels overwhelmed too but Andy goes on, whispering. "I should have realized, after a while, when he stopped stepping in these libraries of ours, when he stopped bringing books back, trying to understand the world around us, the people there, that something wasn't right. But who am I to judge, when I couldn't pick myself up either?"

Nile slumps against the shelves at her back. "It's not your fault, you know that." 

Andy smiles, tired and bitter. "I thought he would get better. I thought he would find again, what had driven him to live in the first place. Isn't it hypocritical, coming from me? When, until he went and did what he thought he had to do for us all, I wouldn't confront what I had lost. What I missed the most." Andy goes by the door, walking closer to Nile. She whispers "After loosing his family, seeing the many wars in his own country, living through them, and seeing it again and again and again everywhere, as the thoughts in prints never changed much of anything... I think it slowly killed him. He couldn't help his family, he never managed to make his ideal live in his own society or help any others... I think that was what lead him, slowly, to denigrate his own life. And what we had. I can't really blame him, can I? He had lost his purpose, just as I had lost mine." 

\- - - - 

Nile was sitting now, surrounded by books, Andy not far from her with a glass in her hand that she had taken from a cupboard hidden by the door, and her eyes lost on some pages or others. 

"Is this" she gestures around the shelves "why you call him Booker? Le Livre?" 

Under the soft light of the lamp, Andy's eyes glisten. She straightens. 

"The books, you mean? No. That nickname, it comes from before."

Nile waits, expecting to hear more, to know finally, the mystery behind it. 

But Andy only turns her gaze and her disarming smile on her, and says with a shrug. "You'll have to ask him that one. I already said enough for tonight."

Nile huffs. 

"I should have known. It was too good to be true."  
\- - - -

When she settles in the desk chair of her bedroom, she takes up her phone and thinks for a second or two. She finally sends a single message, and it feels likes she's standing on the edge of yet another cliff in her and Booker's friendship. 

_Fairy Legends or Les Misérables,for the night. What do you think?_

_Depends, kid_ she reads his reply, her heart swelling at the deceptively simple text which seems to reveal a hidden gem of Booker's soul and heart to her _do you want to fall asleep or do you want to knock yourself out reading?_

Nile blinks, considering the texts from Booker and then the books in front of her. 

_You win, old man_

She'll have to give him that one, she hadn't considered the weight of Victor Hugo's edited work when she had asked. It will have to be the Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by Croker for now. And anyway, even if Hugo's novel had given her an inkling of what Booker's life would have been in his time, the team was in Ireland for now. It was only fitting, to get to know where she was through the words of those who had lived the land and breathed it in before her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for bearing with me through this mess of something that is still not defined on my end... I've been wondering why Booker is called Booker/Le Livre. You can't blame me for making Booker a proto-communist turned cynic after almost 2 centuries on this earth. 
> 
> \+ I Thought I would start hinting at something through the libraries the team must have in every place they stay in. But it lead me to questioning what a book is, how we read, how it evolved as an object and a concept through times. And so here we are : a little history of Books in western Europe. 
> 
> Also am I in a feud with people excluding others from accessing knowledge? Hell. Yes. Elsevier you're not my friend.
> 
> Next chapter will be the last of this work because Quỳnh. Yes. Finally. Cheers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentles! I know why i wrote about books in the last chapter! I know ! Because : Andy!!  
> I swear it'll make sense. I just realized it as I wrote this. But there was a reason.
> 
> Trigger warning for this chapter:  
> discussion of Nazi books (especially here is referenced Mein Kampf as a book. I don't quote it. I do not condone anyone owning it for any other purpose than studying the ideology and rhetoric that lead people to support mass killings and genocide and a war. For that, there is no better example unfortunately. Best edition out there for that is the German scientific edition which I am jealous of because I still can't read it: https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/no_cache/aktuelles/themen/edition-mein-kampf/mein-kampf-english/print/ja/print.html (link to a preseentation in English of the project). Stay safe. Punch Nazis.

It's been five months since Booker was sent in exile. Since Nile has entered this new step in her life.

Five months in which, like a wave, anger and pain, sadness, has come and gone around her, around the team, always there but simmering down now to frothing bubbles of frustration. Sporadic, and acknowledged, but not given the space to drown them again.

Nile keeps up with Booker, texts, pictures, articles shared and inside jokes building up their own little relation. They are the younger around the team, even with 200 years apart, they still share a lot of similarities. Not only Quỳnh, although she led them to this, but more than Nile would have ever expected to share with an old white Frenchman.

As they move back to the Northern hemisphere, Nile sits in one of their living-room and tries to make sense of everything she's gathered in those 5 months. From herself. From the team. And the way they worked.

She takes a breath, and tries to think.

About her, first.

She's left her family behind, and it still hurts, wrenching her heart out. But Copley is kind enough to keep her updated on what is going in their lives. She sees her brother's anger that he cannot express at her loss. She sees her mother's tears that she has to shed in public, in case she will be called unloving. She sees them, closing in on themselves around her and her father's deaths, for a country she realizes now that never really considered them. If Copley weren't there, pretending to be the link with the U.S.Army, pretending that it's normal for her family to have such support from the institution that killed her, she wonders how it would have gone for them.

She takes a breath. She's left them behind, she keeps informed on their whereabouts (her brother going to Chicago to work, her mother moving house because too many memories break her heart), but she doesn't get involved. She asks Copley to help them out, when they need, inconspicuously. That's enough.

Booker's warnings had left their mark. She's egoistic like that, but the chance of being resented for something she never chose makes her believe that being thought dead cannot be worse than being thought selfish and uncaring. She's learning to live with it.

Nile looks at the ceiling, her eyes drifting around the off-white paint peeling in some place.

Joe had said they should start thinking about working around the house again. They had already started speaking about colors.

Joe.

In the first months, she had seen two sides of Joe. She had seen the love, and the friendliness. The utter devotion he gave away, to those he considered close. The way he would settle, contented, by Nicky's side, the way he would converse and joke around with Andy. The way he took her in, welcoming and trusting. Never questioning.

She had seen, because of Booker, how Joe carried pain too, how he handled what he never thought he would face. She had seen him ruthless, as he worked for a goal, as he tore at his thoughts. She had seen the strength he kept in him, that would boil over in training, whenever something reminded him of his betraying friend. Someone he had cared for, that didn't seem to have cared enough back. She had seen too, how he would breathe after letting it all out, how guilt would come over his eyes. Because he knew all the rage and the resentment, it didn't make him any better. It didn’t help either.

It's been five months now. And Nile thinks the both of them are quite alike, in how they handle hardships. In silence, suffocating under it, until it was too much and something had to give. After five months, Joe stood a bit straighter, his eyes were lighter. There were days, when Nile could see his shoulders ready to hunch, when Nicky would stay close, without a word being said. The conflict was still there, in his soul, deep down. There would be fleeting instants of frustration, a rush of anger, some days when Booker came up. He would step away then, leave them, to handle it by himself. Nile thought a hundred years wouldn't be enough, for him to understand where he stood. Because that's how he was. She was like that too. His loyalty was never ending, even if it could kill him. Booker was and would always be a friend to him. Even after Merrick.

Even after everything.

Nile would laugh if it weren't so sad. How could she have so much insight into the other's life and still feel so lost in her own.

There are soft footsteps behind her and she turns her head. Nicky is standing at her back, his clear eyes alight with the rays of sun coming inside the house. There is a box in his arms.

"What's that?" she asks, fully sitting up and turning around.

Nicky shrugs as much as he can while holding onto something heavy. "Old books that we had in the basement" he peers inside the box "I thought we should add a few shelves around. We have the space. And these definitely will start rotting if they're left down there another year."

"That bad uh? Who put them there?"

"One does wonder, when talking about books.They're from the 20s, which doesn’t help, honestly. I'm surprised we can still pick them up and they're not crumbling."

Before Nile can continue on the conversation, they both turn to the sound of heavy steps on creaking stairs. It’s Andy, coming down with a bag over her shoulder, her hair disheveled and full of dust.

"And where have you been?" Nile wonders with awe as the woman comes closer.

"The attic. Some weapons need cleaning." Andy replies, eyeing with disdain the box in Nicky’s arms. "Those should have stayed in the basement. Or we should use them for a pyre." She looks like she's bitten something rotten.

"Why?" Nile sends a glance at Nicky, who just blinks between the two of them.

"Nicky" Andy warns.

"I respectfully disagree" he replies, blankly.

"What are those?" Nile gets up, awkwardly reaching for the box before either of them start to fight over it.

She picks up the first book, and it takes her a moment to make sense of what she has in her hand. The cover is soft, unmarked, but for an eagle at the top. When her eyes finally make sense of what is stamped dry on the cover, the leather modeled to let the title appear in relief, her face falls. She doesn't know German, she's not anywhere close to knowing that language, but some names are just too well-known even outside of Germany to leave her concerned.

"Why do you have these? Scratch that. Why do _we_ have these? " Nile feels cold suddenly. _Mein Kampf_ in her hand feels heavy, even with how small it is. If this is an excerpt of the rest of the box, she's not sure she wants to go through it. She looks between Nicky and Andy, who are locked in a starring contest.

"Because we are in Germany. And we lived there for a while in the 1930s." Nicky says.

Andy glares.

"I will not have these on a shelf, anywhere." she declares.

Just as Nicky is about to reply, the main door opens and Joe greets them all with a "Grüß Gott" that sounds too cheery for the discussion they were having.

Nile will not let this go. She wants to know what this is about, and why this was in the basement. Why they owned these things in the first place. And why Nicky is moving them up there.

"Why do you have these?" she repeats, voice unyielding.

Her tone might have resonated in the house, and they can all hear Joe efficiently leaving whatever he had brought in with him by the entrance and stride towards them. When he reaches them, he stops short, still tangled in his scarf. Nile doesn't have the time for him to be all cosy. She needs answers. Because there are words resonating around her head, of the first time she saw them, and how they tried to do good wherever they could. She needs to be sure.

"Why do you have these? This is the last time I'm asking. Nicely."

"Ah." Joe sighs. "Those again."

"Joe" Nile looks at him. If the others aren't willing to say anything, she'll have a go at him.

Joe steps closer, taking the box from Nicky's hands. For a moment, it looks like Nicky is not going to let him have it, but they share a look, which seems to have been the result of many conversations, and finally he lets Joe take the box and put it on the back of the couch, using his leg to prop the box and not let it fall.

"Blame Booker." Joe says lightly.

Nile feels her heart drop. She still has the book in her hand, and suddenly it's burning her. She throws it in the box, taking a step back.

"What the fuck." Nile seethes, and Nicky sighs, long and suffering.

"It's not-" he tries, but Joe cuts him quickly.

"What do you think?" he asks Nile, picking up the damned book again. "With what you know of him?"

"I stand with what I said. We should burn them." Andy declares, going to sit on the couch, and gesturing for Joe to giver her a book too.

"Yusuf, don't -" Nicky warns, coming to stand by his side and take the box back from him.

"Explain. Someone explain." Nile feels an urgency in her soul.

"You can ask the man himself" Joe shrugs, his hands still on the box. But Nicky's glance quietens him, before he can say anything more.

Andy is leafing through a book, where Nile can vaguely see drawings of people, even pictures sometimes. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Why?" she can only asks, because anything else will leave her angry and she doesn't want to lose her senses to hear the explanation thoroughly. She really hopes it's a good one.

Joe has a book too in his hands now, but Nicky is the one speaking up, his hands now clenched on the back of the couch, watching the others with determination.

"Ignorance isn't an excuse."

Nile blinks. "What?"

"Ignorance isn't an excuse. Claiming ignorance isn't an excuse." he repeats, as if it is supposed to make more sense to her, although she can see Joe smile at the words. "And hiding these, ignoring them, doesn't make the issue go away."

Andy huffs in irritation. "We know the issue is there. We don't need to have these books here for that."

"Guys. I'll need more than that if you don't want me to start trampling you all." Nile threatens.

"As you can see" Joe sighs dramatically. "This" he gestures with his book "is an ongoing conversation between us. Which will not be settled. Even without the man who started it." He eyes Nicky cheekily. "Because apparently, someone has sided with him."

Nicky hangs his head, disbelief clear on his face. "I'm not siding, Joe-"

"You. Are." Andy declares, closing her own book dramatically. "He convinced you didn't he? When was the last time we were here?" She asks Joe, before asking back to Nicky "When did you start talking about it again?"

Nicolo looks on, not even bothering to reply.

"This is a safe space for us, Nicolo" Joe says, as if he has said that a thousand times before and will say it again, all over if he has to.

"This is not a safe space, _carino_. It's a house. In a country village in Baden-Württemberg. Twenty kilometers away from here, there were still meetings of Neo-nazis happening, not a year ago. It's ours. But we can't ignore what is happening around." Nicolo counters, softly. "There are people out there, ready to take up the mantle that ideology left." he goes on, taking the book from Joe's hands, and with his other hand, he cradles Joe's neck. "I'll not ignore something which could put you in danger. Or any of us. I'm not saying we need to tackle it every day, every hour. But we can't act as if it doesn't happen. As if it didn't happen." He gestures with the book. "This cannot be ignored."

Andy turns to him, and Nile feels like she's observing a conversation on repeat. One which took place a thousand times when she wasn't here.

"We do not ignore it, Nicolo. We just want the house to be a space and a time where we can get away from all that."

"It's a privilege to be able to cut yourself away." He counters easily, collected, his eyes leaving Joe's for a moment. "And privilege too easily slips toward willful ignorance."

Andy closes her eyes, and it looks like there are layers to that sentence she doesn't want to acknowledge.

"That still doesn't explain why you have a copy of _Mein Kampf_ and any other shitty books in here!" Nile snaps at last.

Joe licks his lips, looking at Nicky before looking at her.

"Andy told you, about how Booker would collect things around. These are all books he came upon while we were staying here, around the time of the great depression. We had left the U.S.A., we went to Berlin, ended up here. There was this guy, rising up in politics. Booker got his hands on a few books. Few years later, tada, Fuhrer and all that jazz. Did it help? No. Did it lead us to evenings wasted away as we argued over the books? Yes."

"We try not to get involved in politics. Politics are messy, you know it. If someone needs help, we help. But that's the end of it." Andy says to Nile, eyes soft "Booker thought he could do something though. So he got the books. And he went to rallies, started making a raucous with the communists. And that's when we had to leave."

No one continues on. Nile waits. She'll hear the end of it or she won't stay another minute in this place.

"When we came back, 15 years later, he took the books down to the basement himself." Andy adds finally, as if it's the end of it.

"But then" Nicolo cuts smoothly, voice low "add a few decades, and the book is showing up again. It's used. Again. The ideology. Again. The consequences. Again."

Joe shakes his head. "We don't have the power to stop it. I won't see a reminder of that in the house I'm supposed to live in."

"We shouldn't give up on changing things. Otherwise, what's the point of doing what we are doing?" Nicolo replies, taking Joe's hands in his and holding on tight. "We can't just go and kill people. Killing doesn't make anything better. Educating, it might take time, but it could be the solution. And we can't educate on something if we don't know what we're educating against."

Nile looks at the box and back at the people in front of her. "Give me the book again."

Andy sighs as if the argument is as old as her, and Nicolo has a small smile on his lips as Joe throws her gracefully the book.

When she opens it, she sees the badly printed text, angled, with ink dried leaking over some letters. "Can't believe it's what created all that mess" she mutters. And when she turns the pages, she notices that instead of a wide margin, like she's used to in those books, the Gothic lettering is overwhelmed with hand-written cursive, almost hiding the original text with pencil scratches.

The many pencil scratches.

"Good god. How long did he spend on that one?" She can't help but ask.

"Way too long" Joe deadpans. "I can't tell you how many bottles of wine got lost in that."

"Fifteen" Andy answers. "Bottles, that is. Which makes me think, I'll need help emptying that part of the basement I believe."

Nile has to look up at her, blinking. The words are fuzzy in her head, between some French and German, and sometimes what she thinks might be Russian but the writing is too weird for her to know for sure, so she's not sure she's heard right the English Andy just spoke.

"What are you going to do?"

Andy sighs. "Since we're cleaning up a bit, I thought I should clean the basement too."

Nicolo leans over the couch with his head coked to the side. Yusuf copies him. Andy glances at them unimpressed.

"Clean the bottles you mean" Nicolo says.

Andy nods. "Ignorance isn't an excuse. And it doesn't make the issue go away. You said it." Nicolo smiles wide, almost like a child. Andy adds, quickly "I agree. For the bottles, at least."

Nile feels bereft, between the book in her hand and Andy's affirmation, she doesn't know where she's landed.

"I can help" she says, because she doesn't know what to do else.

"Appreciated" Andy smiles at her, before gesturing to the book she still has in her hands. "Now, give me this. With the alcohol, we won't need much to start a nice fire tonight at the back of the house."

"Andy!" Nicolo curses and Joe has to laugh as she claims a possessive hand over the box of books and the two are back at a starring contest.

\- - -

"So. Where should we start?" Nile asks, blinking owlishly under the flickering main light of the basement. She has a sweater on, but she regrets not taking a scarf as well. It's humid as hell down there. And filled with broken wooden boxes. Most containing bottles, it seems.

No wonder the books would have started rotting soon, if that’s where Booker had stored them.

Andy is crouched in front of her, humming pensively.

"Most of these are empty. The last owner didn't get rid of it. We were too lazy to take care of it ourselves too. But some we added. Well. I added, at first. Then Sebastien too...we should start with those."

"How long have you had that house for?"

"I don't know, since 1820? It was after we met Booker. But he was with his family then. We tried to stay around, not stray too far in case he needed us. Or we needed him."

"I don't even want to know what sort of monsters can hide behind those crates then." Nile sighs, eyeing suspiciously the dark and dusty boxes strewn around.

"Not the worst monsters that can exist, that's for sure." Andy replies.

Nile watches her, as she stands and starts picking up a crate on the least dusty pile of the room.

"Why do you do this, Andy?"

Andy turns her head. "Hum? Well. We're cleaning the house. And I'm still up for that book pyre later today. We need fuel."

Nile rolls her eyes. "You're going to start a war with Nicky. Because of those books. Can you see the irony?" Andy only hums, unconcerned. Nile goes on, ranting "We agreed. No burning, until Booker can tell us what he wants to do with it. It's his books."

"He's not the type to clean up his mess, though" Andy sing-songs.

"Is that what you're doing?" Nile asks, looking intently at Andy for a sign.

It doesn't miss. There's a jerk in her shoulders as she takes up a crate again and places it by the door.

"This one could be given for an auction." the woman says instead.

Nile isn't fazed by her attempt. "Andy" she chides, gently.

Andy walks by her, standing tall and her face serious. "What of it?"

"You're not getting rid of these bottles because Booker can't do it himself." Nile says "You're doing it because of Booker. But for yourself."

Andy snorts, going back to the other crates. "You're too observant for your own good. And not much help with those bottles."

"Apparently not observant enough" Nile replies with a smile. "When did you stop drinking? Completely?"

Andy stops moving entirely, her hand flat on a new crate.

"A month ago. “ she admits finally. “Right after their conversation."

Their conversation. Joe and Booker's. Nile couldn't believe the repercussions had been so far reaching. Joe and Andy, herself. Nicky might be the only one who came out of it unscathed. Maybe because he's the most pragmatic, out of all of them. And he’s a good deal better at dissociating himself from his problems. Catholic through and through, Nile thinks. That's something she never was very good at doing.

"You said it started because of Quỳnh, your communications with him." Andy goes on, softly. "It made me mad. To know you could see her, every night. That Booker could too, still. That he would hide this from me, letting me, letting us believe she wasn't here anymore. That she had faded..."

Nile nods, feeling her throat close up. But she doesn't move, not wanting to frighten Andy into silence either.

"I didn't understand at first.” Andy says “But then, Joe hinted at the pain you felt when you spoke to us about her. Because, clearly, even if we had started thinking her dead, we weren't over it, if you could see that pain in our eyes, almost half a millennium afterward. We weren't over it. I wasn't over it... I can't believe I had ignored that so thoroughly, believing I was handling it fine, when all I did was wave away the signs. And bury it all down." Andy laughs, but it sounds distorted in the basement. Almost as moist as the environment.

"I realized, how I would drown every thought of her I had. Every doubt. Every memory. It was easier to take a bottle and wash away the feelings. Booker kept me company in those times, did you know? I thought he was joining me to forget about his own failures, his own loved ones. I wonder how much it was, between that, and being there for me, through the pain I had for Quỳnh, when he knew he was hiding her from me." Andy voice almost turns into a snarl as she stops speaking.

"I can't say for him" Nile replies slowly "but I think he wanted to protect you. From hurting more."

"Don't, Nile. It's not your place to -" Andy shakes her head "and anyway, that's a shit way of protecting people. Keeping something like that from them."

"What if" Nile says suddenly, unable to keep the doubt to herself now that the talk was happening, because she had never dared ask Booker, but it had been on her mind soon after they had started talking together, with her dreams of dark waters and the screaming woman still jarring her.

"What if he did it to protect her, too?"

The crate in Andy's hands crashes down, making Nile jump back with a start. Andy doesn't move, as the wine spreads over her boots.

"Protect her from what?"

Her voice is strange, almost soundless. As if she hadn't spoken, but the thought was great enough that it had taken a life for itself outside of her.

Nile swallows, unable to keep her voice from trembling. Failing. "From the pain."

Andy turns around, her eyes alight. "What are you talking about?"

And Nile feels something snap softly inside of her. She feels remorse and, inexplicably, resentment. At the selfishness in front of her.

"Booker can get drunk. You can get drunk, you both did, when you thought it would help you deal with Quỳnh. Either because he had to live with her in his dreams or you had to accept that she wasn’t there anymore, by your side, throughout your life. But what can she do? What can Quỳnh do?"

Andy's eyes widen. "What are you saying?"

Nile thinks of her mother, crying, her brother internally raging. Thinking her dead. Because of her.

And herself, watching on them.

"What do you think Quỳnh would feel, if she sees you and the others crying over her, days after days after days?" she snaps, unable to keep the doubt and the pain out of her voice. "What do you think she would have seen, through Booker? If we can see her screaming around in the dark, drowning over and over again, see the shark and the light reaching down to her, what do you believe she would have seen, through Booker? You, drinking yourself to death for her? After three hundred years apart?"

Nile closes her eyes but she can't stop the words from coming out. "Maybe you thinking her dead was for the best.You were not wasting your life over her anymore. You were still drinking, but you weren't actively killing yourself over it. For nothing. You weren't wasting away. You could do something else. You did something else, you still do. You go, you help out. You go on." And Nile doesn't know when it stopped being about Quỳnh and it started being about her, or about them both, away, watching from afar, unable to do anything, to help those she, they love. Only allowed to watch as they go on with their lives, and they're both stuck away, outside of that.

"You go on. At least, you go on."

She can't keep talking, because tears are dripping down her cheeks, and suddenly Andy is in her arms, and her in hers. She feels like she might suffocate, under her presence. But she hears her, shushing her, calming her, feels her rocking her. And she knows they might both be crying, but it feels good, like a weight has finally lifted.

"It's okay, Nile. Breathe. It's okay."

"No it's not" Nile curses back "it never will be!I'm here, alive, and my family thinks I'm dead. They cried. Do you have any idea how hard it was, to watch them cry, over someone who's still alive? Unable to reach for them? But they go on. And I go on. It's the only thing I can do. For them. It's the only thing you can do, for Quỳnh. Until you can get her out of there. Don't you see that, Andy? Don't you see? How much it would have pained her to see you drowning too?"

Andy doesn't reply, but she hugs Nile harder.

"If you don't do it for yourself, at least do it for her." Nile can't help but whisper. “At least, do it for her.”

\- - -

They leave the crates for another time, but Andy stays by Nile’s side throughout the day, and the evening.

During the night, they keep each other company. With music, another pile of books to sort out (less intense than the box Nicky had taken out), and no bottles of alcohol around this time. Not even for the fire. Only marshmallows were allowed near that, and Joe made sure they were ready to coat their teeth in the bad stuff as soon as they got the wood ready to burn up.

And so there’s a fire under the moonlight, and the soft lull of owls chanting away. Andy recalls memories with each new book she picks up, and behind where she is lying on a heavy cover, Nile can hear Joe and Nicky whispering and laughing at whatever the woman is saying.

Nile feels like it's something already. No matter how painful it was to get there. She hopes it'll lead them to something good.

At the very least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this! I said last time the next chapter would be the last, with Quỳnh coming up. Well. I lied. Quỳnh did came up here, but it's not the last chapter. The next will be. I just needed to close on something with Andy dealing with the revelations of Nile seeing Quỳnh repeatedly over the months, and facing her own problem with alcohol. It was very very roundabout but my brain had a reason for all these convolutions. Apparently? Well. I have to trust in it so...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I rushing the end? Could be. Am I excited about finally being able to dive into Quỳnh' side of the story! YES PLEASE.  
> I'm sorry.

It's been more than five months. Five months since Nile has been thrown into this world which seems without end, where emotions are still raw and pure and too difficult to face. Around her, it's almost as if time has come to an end. It's days, and nights, days, and nights, which are similar and yet are supposed to be different, all the same. 

Nile wades through, she trains, she watches the people around her. She listens too. She learns, about relationships and peace, and forgiving without ever forgetting. For yourself and for others. She learns, about mourning something which will never be, mourning for someone who cannot be again and someone who could be, but you can't help. She gets used to it, this new life of hers, and she even finds genuine joy in this new realm of possibilities. So many things she can take on and live through and experience, what she had never dared dream before. 

It's been more than five months of living with this supposed immortality. Of Yusuf showing her around cities for hidden gems of craftsmanship. Of Nicolo speaking to her in soft tones, guiding her along the lines of Italian or Arabic words and stories. Of Andy revealing to her a past some people can only dream, and societies which are still buried down deep.

It's been less than five months since she has started reaching out to Booker, and they've built whatever it is they are now sharing. It feels longer, with how much they have spoken to each other, but maybe it's because they have many things in common, as surprising as it is. Maybe it's because he understands what it feels like, to have to live with beings so much older than you, that they sometime forget who they are and who you are, and that you're nothing much in this life just yet compared to them. Maybe it's because they were born only two centuries apart, and that's the best they can do right now.

Maybe it's because they were both lost, in their own ways, and they've found an anchor to whisper their doubts and their questions to, to confess their sins to. 

Maybe it's because of the distance. The texts, the phone calls, that give you the power to decide when and what and where you speak out. Because there are no obligations, over a phone conversation. Because they just exchange emotions sometimes, and that's enough for some honesty to come through. It's enough, to understand each other and go on together. 

Nile cannot forget, how it all came to be.

This started with the pain of sleepless night, lost in torments. It started with Quỳnh, but it went so much deeper than just her screams. 

It's been more than five months for Nile, of making peace in her mind, with a woman who trashes and rages in silent waters. In the nights, she reaches out to her and she tries, to show her the peace, the quiet, the happiness around her. She tries to calm her frantic heart and share the unshakable belief that one day, some day, they will meet. Because the woman will be out of the sea, and among those who love her and those who have learned to love her, although they have yet to meet properly. 

She doesn't know if it's because she's so intent on creating a space of safety around them both when they are in each other's surroundings, but she feels after some months that Quỳnh takes her peace with her, and bury herself in its cradle. Some nights are harder than others, but for a few moments, Nile can catch the beginning of a smile, soft and true, on the woman's lips. The glitter of trust in the woman's eyes. It leaves her bereft and she has to crawl her way back to her own reality when she wakes up from such feelings. 

But it's the beginning of something. 

This started with the pain of sleepless night, lost in torments. It started with Quỳnh, but it went so much deeper than just her screams. 

So when the sleepless nights loose their torments, and the scream fall in echoes to memories, deep and void of new sounds to work with, it leaves Nile reeling. 

\- - -

"Answer me. Answer me. Answer me. Answer me." Nile is muttering. It's eleven in the morning where she is. She thinks it might be the same time wherever Booker is, because her only certainty still, with what they've talked about in the past, is that the man will not leave metropolitan France to save his own life. It doesn't help that he is not answering. At eleven in the morning. 

The line rings again, a dead end, and Nile is ready to slap her phone shut when a rasp comes through the line at last. 

"Hey" 

"Hey" Nile replies.

She doesn't know what to say after that. Because as disturbed as she is now, Booker sounds just like that.   
There is silence on Booker's end. Only breathing. As if it's hard for him too, to form sentences this morning. 

Nile doesn't want to ask. Maybe it's absurd, only a moment of absence, something that she shouldn't bother him with. But the doubt persists. And he's only breathing still. The light shining through the window in front of her burns her pupils.

"Kid, I'm sorry" he says finally, and Nile winces. He sounds old, and tired. She feels the same. She feels the same, and she doesn't know what's worse. 

"She wasn't-" Nile starts, then chokes on the words. It hurts to say them out loud. It makes it true, somehow. But she doesn't want them to be true. She doesn't want for Quỳnh to have gone and- 

"I know" Booker mumbles. "I-" 

None of them talk. 

"What if-" Nile whispers, voice trembling, tears prickling at her eyelids. She can't be, she can't be, but what if. What if indeed. 

"Don't-" Booker snaps suddenly, but then he takes a breath. And there the sound of a glass again. Nile feels like she will fall if he doesn't say anything else. She will fall because half of her grounds have just shifted, and the other is sliding to the waters too.

"Kid. It doesn't mean anything." Booker whispers, sounding unconvinced. 

"Liar" Nile can't help but let out. "Don't lie. You said you wouldn't lie to me. Don't start now."

"I don't know, Kid. I don't know. There's nothing to lie about. Maybe, it's just -" she hears him breathing erratically now, and her heartbeat picks up to follow his words "maybe -"

"Maybe she got out." Nile blurts out, and she blinks because saying it doesn't make it more real, and it sounds so strange, and absurd. It's absurd. There's no reason why Quỳnh would die, now of all times. There's no reason she couldn't get out. She wouldn't die now. Not like that.

She couldn't die like that.

"Maybe she got out" Booker repeats " maybe, she isn't dead" he says. "She can't be." he adds.

The lull in their talk, is what breaks Nile. They can't lie to each other about that. Not with something so big. Not with something like that.

"What if she is?" Nile chokes out, angry suddenly. Frustrated. It doesn't help anything at all to deny what could be. It doesn't help, ignoring it doesn't make it go away. And right now, the only thing that went away is Quỳnh and Nile is missing her. She is missing her but she needs her, so she has to face the possibility.

Maybe Quỳnh is dead. Maybe she's faded away. Like Andy had thought for all those years. 

Before Nile had told her to try and live, because who knew, Quỳnh would come back and Andy needed to be there and alive to welcome her into her arms. 

And now - 

"Andy" Nile lets out, it's a plea. Because her mind cannot go further thinking about her. She needs Booker. "Andy" she repeats, feeling lost in front of the kitchen sink. She feels like she's falling. But the tiles are still there under her feet. She's still falling. She's just not feeling it just yet. 

She hasn't realized it. Like so many things. Like Quỳnh -

"Wait, Nile, don't." Booker suddenly presses her "Don't do anything. It's been only one night, maybe - we should wait. Maybe something happened-" he has to take a breath "-to her, to us, we can't know for sure. But one occurrence, it's not enough to base a reasoning around, and we need proof, Nile. We need to wait. Don't tell anything to them. Not yet. We need more than just what we have now. We need to wait. We can't put them through that just yet. Not if she comes back tonight again." 

There's hope in Booker's voice, and he sounds as if he's scrambling, gathering every possible shield he has to protect himself from the loss of that woman he never met and yet knows too much about. As if paining the others would be the last thing he wishes in his entire life. Nile's not hopeful, but hearing him speak like that, it kindles something in her heart. She feels her heart settle slightly, and she grounds herself, her eyes closing. 

She needs to think. They need to think.

"You're right. No, you're right. We wait. Ok" Nile says, trying to find strength in herself and reason, and logic, when everything has fled her control and her will. "We wait. Let's give it a few days. Three days." 

One day to cry. One day to mourn. One day to face the facts. She can't do it, but she'll try. The others deserve this.

"Today is the first one." Nile declares, assured in her voice if not in her doubts "In three days. I tell them. We tell them. And we find her, Booker. Because she's not dead. She's not dead."

"She's not dead" Booker repeats almost like a prayer. "We will see her again, kid. The others too. Don't worry. She's still here." 

"Three days." She repeats to herself, feeling peace wrap around her shoulder and calm her thoughts and her irrational prayers. "Three days."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Nile wonders if her reaching out, giving Quỳnh a bit of her peace, a bit of her life, isn't what led the woman to let go, and die, quietly with a smile on her lips.

Peace in her heart.

The knowledge that her lover and her friends were fine. 

She hangs up on Booker, and gets out of the house. She can't take it. Selfishly, she thinks she would rather Quỳnh had lived, and kept on screaming in her dreams. That's what she holds onto, while she waits for sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this mess of a work. I never thought it would bring about such an entity around itself. The goals at the beginnings have been definitely written over by some other goals which came up mid-writing. That's to say: Quỳnh. Yes. Finally. 
> 
> My handling of this is a clusterfuck. Everything in this entire serie is a clusterfuck. But I hope you're having fun reading it, and that you like it. I have things in view but no way can I say if it's going to be sensible in the end. 
> 
> I'm sorry. Thank you again for bearing through. You're gems! My only hope is that it makes sense. I hope it makes sense. I don't know if it makes sense *noise of triceratops sadness echoing down a cave*.


End file.
